40k and Horus Heresy Hobbyist. High quality painting and model-building my main interest, but increasingly tactics and gaming. I hope to deliver painting tips, formation advice and list feedback on both 40k and Heresy systems.

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Last weekend I attended the tenth competitive Ultimate Commander
tournament run at 4tk Gaming in Colchester, Essex UK.This event was compact at around 30 players but was
surprisingly hard fought. Several capable players attended (ETC, England team
backgrounds) with locals bringing out their strongest lists (20 Custodes
Jetbikes and Morty/Skarbrand/Magnus super-friends to give you a feel!).

Format

Andy (the store owner) and Rich (TO) had worked really hard to
come up with a novel tournament pack. They leant on maelstrom missions (4 from
chapter approved and 2 from the rule book). They were played exactly as they
were written, which meant high drop armies in two of the games would be going
second unless they seized the initiative. This gave elite armies a good chance
to go first for two games, which I am sure they appreciated in a Meta that
favours high model count.

The deployment zones were kept secret and only rolled for once
everyone had placed their objectives. Despite concerns about people taking
longer to set up their markers, everyone actually got the hang of this and
placed markers quickly. Keeping the deployment maps secret was a shrewd move as
it meant people couldn't "game" objective placement for specific
deployment maps.

Perhaps the most original elements were the “NFL playoff” style
knockout to determine the winner from a top 8 (generated from the first days
results) and the decision to introduce "board effects". Those outside
the top 8 would go into a plate competition and fight for that bracket (known
as Battle Captain). Andy was trying to cater for the very competitive and more
casual attendee, and I feel he achieved his aim using this system.

The board effects ranged from reducing area effect areas down by
half, making powers harder to cast by a few points or reducing movement by a
couple of inches. They were tied to specific maps and terrain boards; Andy and
the store had worked hard to reflect a muddy battlefield or
"anti-psyker" alien crystal planet by way of example. The effort that
had gone in to make these effects fun (but not game breaking) and have them reflected
in the actual terrain was impressive to say the least.

My list

My focus remains the May 2018 series of tournaments coming up
(London GT and GW Grand Final). This meant several key units were on corks getting
finished to try and vie for best painted in those events. So what I took wasn't
optimised. Never the less, I had a lot of objective secured and wanted to
really test the Intercessors properly in a competitive scene.Spoiler – they will be finished and
kept for more casual games only I am sorry to say...

I deployed
my scout screen to keep his smites off my key units and ended up going second.
In a bold move he pushed Morty forward. My entire army, helped in the end by Guilliman
in close combat, gunned him down. But this cost me Guilliman as his army fired
everything back at him.This did
mean however that the bulk of my Hellblasters were intact, along with the
Manticores and they wore everything down over the next two turns.

In this
mission you have to bet on how many objects you will score to gain a bonus
equal to that amount. I always bet 2 and always got an extra 2 points. On one
round my opponent failed to achieve his declared 2 objectives, handing me 2 additional
points. The additional +2 to cast (board effect) was fun to play, without being
too ridiculous. The end result was a significant victory for me.

Again the
scouts proved invaluable in pushing back the inevitable deep strike charges.
The Hellblasters got to go first; all his stuff was on deployment line. As a
result he lost most of his six Zoanthropes immediately. The Exocrines are
outrageous in terms of damage output. He killed a lot with these but Guilliman
mopped up his forward units at my end of the board. A marginal win in my favor.

This game
was against a local guy (Tom) that always plays consistently well. It was
effectively the deciding round, and make or break to get into the top 8. If I
won this game I couldn't do worse than 8th place overall. The Lascannon Leman
Russ is no joke. The cards though were against him, and with me going first I
knew I had a good chance in beating him to 10 points (needed to win the mission
and end the game immediately). Despite him killing Guilliman I won by getting
to 10 points first. Going first is huge in this mission as you effectively get
a free turn to get the last few points needed to hit 10. A narrow win and onto
the NFL style knock out bracket to determine the overall tournament winner.

Social

The
atmosphere was good throughout the weekend; the free tea and coffee and time
betweens rounds gave everyone a chance to talk lists and ideas. I met some new
people and we went for a beer and food in Colchester, which was nice. It wasn't
too hectic, but a few pints before turning in was great.

This is the
game I think most people will be interested in. Joey (a friend and good player
who attended Heat 2 of the GW GT) was running the list and I was really looking
forward to learning how this army would shape up. A lot has been said and
written in the new Custodes jetbikes. I set up in my now fairly standard area denial
shape and his bikes were all on the line, bar three he cheekily stuck in deep
strike reserve using a stratagem (despite asking him in deployment if he had
any deep-striking units! – a good tactic on his part to be fair).

I went first
thanks to a seize roll. I failed in achieving first blood despite my reasonable
level of firepower. He then moved up and charged my gun line with Guilliman in
the centre. Both of us went back and forth, making what I thought were the
right plays on both sides. He kept his warlord well hidden toward the end due
to Guilliman and smite chewing through almost all his bikes single handedly.
Guillman must have dispatched well over half of his army. I made careful use of
the three-inch consolidation move each time Guilliman became free from combat
and this helped him bounce up and down my deployment zone dealing with the
bikes.

In the end
Joey won due to him achieving more objectives - but he had one bike left. I took some satisfaction from learning that a
more optimised list would have been able to deal with the new
"boogy-man" list. A significant loss never the less.

5.Mission: Tactical
Escalation Opponent: Tau. Guns with
fly keyword. This was a bit a non-event. The Tau player had more guns than I
had bodies to deliver Guilliman safely into his lines. With very little terrain
I wilted and died on the vine pretty quickly.Big win to the Tau player who had a good, well-understood,
rounded list that he played well. (Full disclosure – I hate Tau…still scared
from 7th edition!)

The two
losses meant I was fighting for 7th place. I set my line with my
deep strike screen out in front and braced for the charge.I managed to seize the initiative again,
which ultimately swung the game. Guilliman and the guns dispatched 3-4
Carnifexes a turn and we called it early with only a few Rippers and a
Zoanthrope left to really deal with.A good game never the less.My opponent plans to increase his Carnifex numbers even further, which I
think could be really strong.

Summary

The
tournament was really well run (thanks Rich!) and successfully delivered a
unique event primarily due to the two-tier bracket system after day one.Those not in the top 8 were still
fighting for Battle Captain (a hard fought plate competition), so everyone had
something to fight for throughout the weekend which worked well.The NFL style knock out rounds and
seeding of games was novel and really good fun.

Knockout is
a fast a furious way to play; if you build a good lead early, the end score
doesn’t really matter – you just need to win.This helped keep games to time (a hot topic in the
podcast/40k world) because once it became obvious where the result was going
most people had a sensible discussion and called it to go and get a
coffee.This resulted in some very
competitive games but still left time remaining to chill out between rounds and
watch other games to see what could be learnt.

7th
place and best painted with more work to do on some of the models, and unit
swaps to make, was a good result in my eyes.

A great
weekend, in a well equipped, well stocked, well laid out store with some very
smart, varied tables.

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